This is serenity?

I'm horrified. What have I done?

I blithely ordered a couple of books from Amazon about the dearly departed TV series "Firefly" and the movie that it inspired, "Serenity," which hits the theaters Sept. 30, a day which can't come soon enough for me. Since discovering the series via DVD, I have become more geeked out than I have about any characters since, well, since ever. I don't recall even being this fond of the Fantastic Four, or Kirk and Spock, or Luke Skywalker, or Picard and the gang, who might otherwise be considered the usual suspects from my childhood onward. I'm just stoked.

It likely has a lot to do with where I've arrived in life, where I admire those who try to eke out a living by flying under the radar of a massive, intrusive central government - which of course is an extremely brief description of the life of the crew of the cargo ship Serenity 500 years in our future.

Artistic genius Joss Whedon, who created the series and directed the movie, explains it succinctly on the back cover of "Finding Serenity," one of my Amazon acquisitions, a collection of essays about the series edited by Jane Espenson, a talented writer who's responsible for the "Firefly" episode called "Shindig."

Whedon wrote: "You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are. If there's any kind of fiction better than that, I don't know what it is."

Buying the books just made sense while I'm counting the days to be reunited with Malcolm Reynolds and his motley crew. Yesterday, for example, I went into the local comic book shop for the first time in years and came away with the first two issues of the Dark Horse mini-series "Serenity," a story that bridges the dramatic gap between the series and the film.

It's the other book, which I ordered without carefully reading the description, that has me feeling not exactly, well, serene. "Serenity: The Official Visual Companion" is a beautiful book with lots of big photos, based on the peeks inside that I've allowed myself. Come Oct. 1, I no doubt will consider it one of my prized possessions. For now, though, it's a time bomb.

The reason lies in the description of the book on the cover: "With an introduction and the Motion Picture Screenplay by Joss Whedon."

Eeeeeek! I have carefully learned as much as I can about the movie without finding out what actually happens in it. I love the podcast "The Signal" because it's a weekly hour of Firefly conversation (including interviews with cast members and support artists) that is completely spoiler-free. And now I have the whole gorram script under my roof! Eeeeeek!

This morning I am handing the book over to my sweetie with strict instructions not to let me see it again until Sept. 30. Well, I'm going to read the first half of the book first, which includes a memo by Whedon called "A Brief History of the Universe, circa 2507 A.D." But then it's going to a special place known only to Sweetie. And I will try desperately to resist a horde of temptations.

AFTERTHOUGHT: With "Firefly," Whedon has raised perhaps the most thought-provoking question presented by a television series since "Ginger or Mary Ann?" That question, of course, is "Inara, Kaylee or Zoe?" In posting Will Conrad's drawing of actress Jewel Staite, who plays Kaylee (the "real" Kaylee weighs about 20 more pounds), I have submitted my own answer to the world.